Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lisa knew it would be a challenge to help Ponyo adjust from living with her sisters under the sea as a goldfish, to living on land as a human girl. During the long night of the Great Imbalance, she and Ponyo’s mother, the sea goddess Granmamare, spoke of many things to consider. In the end, Lisa promised to do her best to be a good mother to Ponyo and nurture her to the best of her ability. As a result, the first few months after Ponyo came to live with Sōsuke and Lisa, were nothing short of magical. They were months of smooth sailing, of brand-new discoveries about her world (Snow! The big city!), and of Ponyo growing into her humanity. Between Lisa, Sōsuke, Kōichi (when he could be there), and the ladies at the retirement home, Ponyo thrived.

Then, the following April, when it came time for the children to begin elementary school, the first hint of trouble for Ponyo arrived.

One week into school, Lisa learned how Ponyo was, far and away, the best swimmer in her first grade class.

Ponyo’s teachers were in awe of her progress: while most of the other children remained in the shallow end of the pool, clinging tightly to flutterboards and learning to dunk their heads, Ponyo flipped underwater somersaults and rose in perfect arcs in the deep end, soaring several metres into the air before diving in again. She could hold her breath in the water for minutes on end; the first time she did that she remained underwater for almost three minutes happily swimming along the bottom of the pool, giving her teachers a huge scare until she surfaced.

Ponyo’s first PE report card stated “She swims like she’s part fish!!!!!” with four extra exclamation points for added emphasis. Oh, if you only knew, Lisa smiled to herself.

Ponyo soon became a minor sensation in the world of competitive swimming. Word of her aquatic prowess reached as far away as Tokyo, and soon professional swimming coaches clamoured to observe her, always on the lookout for their next future Olympic champion. The local club coach convinced Ponyo and Sōsuke to try out for the children’s swim team.

Excited, the children agreed, and Lisa gave her permission. Except after their first session, Ponyo left the swimming club meetup dejected and near tears.

“So how did it go?” Lisa asked once the children climbed into the car and settled in the cramped back seat. (Since Ponyo had come to live with them, Sōsuke had stuck by Ponyo’s side and no longer sat up front with Lisa.)

“I don’t wanna swim on this dumb team,” Ponyo said, kicking the back of the passenger seat.

Lisa turned around, suddenly worried. “Why? What happened, Ponyo?”

“They make you swim all by yourself in stupid lanes.”

“The coach got mad ‘cause Ponyo didn’t stay in her lane,” Sōsuke clarified. “She wanted to swim in my lane with me.”

“They won’t let you swim with your friends!” Ponyo shouted, then started to cry. “I miss my sisters! I wanna swim with my sisters!”

Sōsuke patted Ponyo’s arm, trying to comfort her. Ever loyal, he announced he wouldn’t continue with the club either. But it brought home Granmamare’s reminder to Lisa that raising Ponyo as a human was not going to be easy.

The second hint of rough seas came just one week later, when Kumiko, one of the girls in Ponyo’s and Sōsuke’s class, announced she was having a birthday party, and the entire class was invited.

“A party!” Ponyo jumped up and down as soon as Lisa picked them up after school; she vibrated with her excitement. “My first real birthday party!”

Soon Sōsuke followed suit. “And games, and birthday cake!” he shouted.

“All right, all right, you two!” Lisa laughed, “we’ll go to the shops tomorrow to pick out a present for Kumiko.”

“Can I get a new dress for the party?” Ponyo begged.

“Me too!” Sōsuke said.

“Yes, and proper shoes, too,” Lisa said, recognizing how this was a momentous event for a young child.

Lisa bought a new red dress for Ponyo (as she’d already outgrown her original one), and new black shiny patent leather shoes, and Ponyo even picked out the present she would give Kumiko, a picture book about the ocean. Sōsuke picked out a plush goldfish. Lisa even took a photo of the children standing proudly in front of the house in their new outfits to mark the occasion.

Lisa dropped the children off at Kumiko’s house on the day of the party, and left to run errands in town. However, she was called a half hour later just as she arrived at the grocery store.

“I’m sorry to have to call you, Lisa, but Ponyo’s not feeling well,” Mrs. Nagata, Kumiko’s mother, said in a careful tone on the phone. “Can you come right away to pick her up?”

When Lisa pulled up to Kumiko’s house, Mrs. Nagata accompanied Ponyo out the front door with a balloon and a treat bag. Ponyo dragged her feet, hanging her head, and said nothing as she climbed into the back seat. Mrs. Nagata stilled Lisa before she could climb back into her car.

"Ponyo became upset when she saw the betta fish in our aquarium,” Mrs. Nagata explained. “She wanted to set them free in the ocean. I said that they weren’t that kind of fish. Then she started to cry and said she wanted to go home to her sisters. She was so distraught, and she was upsetting some of the other children, so I thought I should call you. But I didn’t know Ponyo had any sisters, I thought she was an only child before she came to stay with you?”

Oh no. “Thank you for calling,” Lisa said, evading the question, “I’ll take Ponyo home and talk to her.”

“Thank you, Lisa. Can Sōsuke remain at the party? He’s having so much fun on the bouncy castle. We’ll drive him home after.”

Lisa sighed heavily. The children had been near-inseparable since Ponyo’s transformation; while Granmamare had assured her that Sōsuke could enjoy some activities by himself without causing any harm, this separation would be the first test. “All right.”

Ponyo sat curled around herself in the back seat, head down and arms around her knees. It broke Lisa’s heart to see her like this. Being human hadn’t been very enjoyable for her the last couple of weeks, Lisa thought, first with the swimming club and now this. Anything to do with water and the sea seemed to make her homesick.

“Where’s Sōsuke?” Ponyo demanded when Lisa climbed into the front seat. “I want Sōsuke.”

“Sōsuke’s going to stay at the party, Ponyo. Hey, can you tell me what happened?” Lisa said quickly before Ponyo could protest. “Why do you want to go home?”

Ponyo’s eyes welled with tears when she looked up, and her lower lip trembled. “Kumiko has betta fish in a tank and I said she should let them go back to the ocean and she called me stupid cos I don’t know anything and I should go back home and she didn’t want me to come anyway.”

Lisa privately fumed at Mrs. Nagata. “They can’t do that, Ponyo, they can’t just let the betta fish go.”

“Why not?”

“They’re different fish than those that live around here. They’re tropical fish. The water here is too cold for them.”

“Why can’t they take them back to their home?”

Lisa sighed again. “It’s complicated,” she said.

“What’s complicated mean?”

“It means it’s really hard to do. So, how about you come with me so I can pick up some groceries, okay?”

Lisa thought Ponyo would say more, but she simply folded her arms, kicked the front passenger seat, and stared glumly out the back window. The ride to the grocery store was otherwise silent as Lisa pondered what to do. She had agreed with Granmamare that Ponyo’s first months on land should be spent fully acclimatizing Ponyo to the world of humans. But perhaps now it was time for Ponyo to re-establish her connections to her ocean home.

“Would you like to visit your sisters in the sea?” Lisa asked as they pulled into the parking lot. “I think we can arrange it.”

“Oh, can we? Yes please!” Ponyo’s face brightened immediately, and Lisa’s heart broke again. She resolved she would browbeat Fujimoto into allowing a visit if she had to.

Later that night, Kōichi and Lisa were settling down to bed, when Kōichi cleared his throat to speak.

“I’m going to quit the fishery,” he announced.

Lisa had in truth been half-expecting his announcement since Kōichi had returned home from his last voyage a few days ago, but she still asked, “Why?”

“I’ve decided I don’t want to risk catching Ponyo’s sisters in the trawling nets anymore.”

Lisa nodded; she knew enough about trawling nets to understand the great harm that could come to them if they got trapped in one. “That’s a lovely thing to do for Ponyo. But fishing is all you’ve known. What will you do?”

“There are openings at the university. They’re looking for technicians to take care of their fish and other sea creatures. And they’re looking for boat captains for their research fleet. I’ll put in my applications tomorrow. Research, Lisa. Marine biology. It’s the least I can do to help save the ocean for future generations. For Ponyo and Sōsuke.”

“All right. In the meantime, I’m going to see what I can do to convince Ponyo’s father to help arrange a visit to see her sisters again,” Lisa said. “She really misses them. I think it will help her adjust better here, knowing that her sisters are doing okay.”

“Fujimoto? He’s the sea wizard, right?”

“Yes. You know, if anyone could whip up something to let it happen, he could.”

“I thought you said Fujimoto wasn’t the easiest person to convince of anything.”

“He’s going to do this. I’m going to make sure of it.”

The next morning, before leaving for work, Lisa donned an old pair of chest waders and climbed down the cliff from her house. She cupped her hands and screamed across the waves from the shore.

“Fujimoto! FUJIMOTO! I need to talk to you!”

She paced and waited impatiently. Granmamare had assured her that Fujimoto would hear and heed her call at all times, but it still took several minutes before his submarine rose from the sea, about fifty metres off-shore.

Undaunted, Lisa waded in up to her hips to meet him in the cold water. He loomed on the deck, his hair and coat and scarf billowing behind him in the sea breeze, as gruff and fey as ever.

And he looked worried.

“You’ve summoned me. Is Ponyo all right?” Fujimoto said.

“Yes, hello Fujimoto. Ponyo is perfectly fine. I just want to talk to you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You just wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes. It is about Ponyo, but there’s no need to worry.” Lisa shoved a hand in her raincoat pocket and retrieved a photograph, laminated to protect it from the water.

“I brought this for you, it’s Ponyo’s school class photo,” she added, extending it towards him.

Warily Fujimoto took it, inspecting it with a keen eye. In her portrait, Ponyo grinned in her brand-new blue school dress, one lower front tooth already isolated from the others; her hair was longer than when he last saw her, plaited in bright red pigtails with blue ribbons to match her dress. His gaze lingered on her wide smile and he stroked her hair.

“How human,” he murmured to himself wistfully.

“What was that, Fujimoto?”

“She’s lovely,” Fujimoto replied loudly, “for a human.”

“Oh, she is! And she’s growing so fast, you wouldn’t believe it! I think she’s going to lose her first tooth soon!”

“You said you needed something?” Fujimoto despised small talk, even if it came from his now-human daughter’s foster mother. “I’m a very busy man.”

“Ponyo misses her sisters terribly, Fujimoto,” Lisa said without preamble. Above all, Fujimoto had always liked her firm directness. “And she misses you too. She would like to visit all of you. I think it would be good for her.”

“I knew this would happen!” Fujimoto said, throwing up his hands. He stalked around the deck in long, agitated strides, his arms flailing. “I knew it! She’s regretting her choice--”

Lisa watched his fit, and thought quickly. “No, nothing like that, she just wants to see them again,” she said. “And I think I know how we can arrange it but we’ll need your help to make it happen.”

Fujimoto stopped his frantic pacing to stare at her. “How so?”

“We can get children’s wet suits to dive in the ocean, but we can’t get scuba gear for children her age. If you could make an air bubble around Ponyo’s head, she’d be able to see and play with her sisters underwater.” She wondered why Fujimoto hadn’t thought of this simple solution himself, seeing as that was how he moved around under the water.

Fujimoto peered at her, considering, then nodded. “I will see what I can do.”

Fujimoto and Granmamare convened in the waters off the cliff after Lisa returned to the house overlooking the sea and went to work.

“She wants to play with her sisters,” Fujimoto said, “she misses them. But her transformation does not allow her to--”

“Ponyo does not stop being our daughter simply because she chose to become human,” Granmamare reminded Fujimoto gently. “Fish or human, she is a little girl first, who misses her sisters terribly. And you have seen how they miss her. It is up to us to rectify that.”

Fujimoto winced at the mention of his daughters missing Ponyo. Truth be told, he missed her terribly as well. But he was a protector of the sea, so he had larger things to consider. “So we should simply bring her here, let her taste magic again?”

“Or we go to visit her, in her world.”

“That is out of the question!” Fujimoto exploded. “The sheer danger that it will put us in, the temptation of the humans to which Ponyo fell--”

“Dear Fujimoto, then she must come here to us. It must be one or the other. I will not let her go without.”

He sighed heavily. “Why do you want us to go there?”

Granmamare did not answer; she merely smiled one of her enigmatic smiles and stroked back his hair.

“So what do you propose, my love? Yes, it’s easier for Ponyo to come here to us, than for all of us to meet her on the land.”

“But she must always come to us for the rest of her days? We cannot try to understand her world at all on her terms?”

“There’s nothing good about the human world,” Fujimoto said darkly. “I should know, I used to be one of them.”

“In some ways you still are,” Granmamare said, kindly but with a point.

Fujimoto blinked at her. “The sheer amount of magic it will entail to bring us all onto land, my love--”

“Do you not think she is worth that work?”

“Of course not! I’m just saying it will take me time, is all. We can let Brun – Ponyo visit her sisters using Lisa’s ‘wet suit’ contraption in the meantime while I figure this out,” Fujimoto said, correcting himself automatically.

“That would be a grand compromise,” Granmamare said.

The day of the visit dawned bright and calm on the sea, while Kōichi steered their catamaran to the spot where they were to meet Fujimoto and the submarine.

Lisa helped Ponyo and Sōsuke don their child-size wet suits and Sōsuke a lifejacket in respect of the depth of the sea. They had tried once to put one on Ponyo on her first trip out on the boat, but she’d stubbornly refused. Ponyo was fully human, but as the months and years passed, Lisa had come to learn that the goldfish was never far away from her. She was attuned to the sea even without her previous magic.

The submarine rose again, Fujimoto looming tall and relentless on the deck. They passed Ponyo to him to conjure the air bubble around her head. Ponyo was so excited, she couldn’t help but bounce on her toes.

“Stay still, Brun-- Ponyo! I must make this fit perfectly!” he said, exasperated. She stilled then, and he finished the air bubble; as soon as he let her go she beelined to the edge of the deck and jumped off the deck joyfully into the sea.

Ponyo’s sisters had also grown in her absence, though not by much, and none had yet appeared like they might wield magic themselves. Ponyo stood at the bottom of the sea and threw her hands up to them and laughed as they swarmed from their hatch from the submarine and gathered around her, darting and dancing, investigating the strange rubber suit she wore.

After a few minutes to allow Ponyo to become re-acquainted with her sisters, Sōsuke joined them, wearing an air bubble of his own. Ponyo’s sisters greeted him with much curiosity. Soon after, they spent hours running on the seabed, chasing after her little sisters in the depths of the ocean. They played hide-and-seek in the undersea caverns, and keep-away among the corals, under their parents’ watchful eyes.

From the deck of his submarine, Lisa and Fujimoto, ensconced in their own bubbles of air beneath the water, watched their human and fish children play together. There was a longing look on Fujimoto’s face that she well recognized, having seen it more than once on Kōichi: the look of a father watching his child grow up too fast, threatening to leave him behind.

“Tell me she will grow up strong and wise and remain true to herself,” Fujimoto implored Lisa.

“We will do our best,” Lisa replied. “She’s just so happy. Thank you for allowing this to happen.”

“Her sisters appear to be ecstatic as well,” Fujimoto said, watching them zip after the children. “I haven’t seen them be this joyful since Ponyo left. And they seem to be delighted to meet your son too.”

“I know,” Lisa said, “Sōsuke already loves your daughters as much as Ponyo.”

“She is my daughter,” Fujimoto replied, “and I will do anything for her. But it seems like I will need your help as well to make it happen.”

Lisa laid her hand on her heart, pleased. “Of course I’ll help! With what?”

“It has come to my attention that we must make the effort to visit Ponyo in return. We would need suitable accommodations on land to do so.”

“Whatever you need. For you and your wife?”

“I have been asked to include my daughters as well.”

Lisa looked surprised for a minute, then nodded firmly. “Done! We should be able to figure something out. Our Golden Week would be a great time to drop by. Four holidays in one week! It ends with Children’s Day. Kōichi and I would be honoured to host you!”

“I must warn you, I am a very busy man. It may very well take me many years to finish the arrangements. I hope it won’t be too long.”

“We’re not going anywhere. Just tell us what you need and we’ll make it happen.”

That night, after Lisa tucked two played-out children into bed, she smiled down at them. They’d both fallen asleep the minute their heads hit their pillows. The visit had done them all a world of good: most importantly, Ponyo had returned to her cheerful, effervescent self. And Lisa had begun to forge a new friendship with the elusive Fujimoto. As a result, their families, human and magical, had grown closer.

Now only to convince Kōichi about renovating their entire upstairs to help Fujimoto fulfill his promise...

A few days after Ponyo’s visit to the sea, Lisa and the children began to prepare for Ponyo’s first Children’s Day.

Ponyo was fascinated by Sōsuke’s koinobori, and was excited when Lisa brought out art supplies to make Ponyo’s koinobori to add to their family flagpole.

“I wanna make my own!” she announced. “And I wanna make one for my ocean family too!”

“All right,” Lisa laughed, “we can make koinobori for your mom and dad--”

“And my sisters! Don’t forget my sisters!”

Lisa paused at that and peered at her; oh dear, she should have thought of that. “Just how many sisters do you have?”

Ponyo raised her head proudly. “Two hundred! I know all their names, too!”

Two hundred sisters? Lisa rubbed her temple, wondering just what she’d gotten herself into. She couldn’t disappoint Ponyo and say no, but that was far too many for the three of them to finish in time.

“I’ll help Ponyo!” Sōsuke piped up.

Lisa looked at their small collection of paper and fabric and paints, and sighed as she thought quickly and made a decision. “Well, then, Sōsuke and Ponyo, we’re going to have to buy more supplies to make--” and she sighed again, “over two hundred fish. And we’re all going to have to help you, Ponyo, if we want your whole ocean family completed by Children’s Day. I’ll have to ask Toki, Yoshi, Kayo, and all the other ladies at the home too.”

“I would like that very much!” Ponyo said, nodding eagerly.

The residents of the home, who had been healed as a result of the Great Imbalance, were all thrilled to help Ponyo, so all two hundred and three fish were drawn, cut out, decorated, and named in record time. Lisa and Kōichi, now at home working as a boat fleet captain for the university, spent their evenings stringing them and fixing them onto their pole. And the morning ceremony to raise Ponyo’s ocean family koinobori at their home drew a sizable crowd of onlookers, fascinated simply by how large a display it was with over two hundred koinobori flying in the breeze. No other family in town had one so big; Ponyo became a minor sensation again, and she was a proud ambassador for her family.

Alas, the promised visit of Fujimoto, Granmamare, and Ponyo’s sisters onto land did not occur that year. Fujimoto tried, but could not be ready in time to visit for Ponyo’s first Children’s Day, or for many years after, having to keep up to control the growing imbalances in the oceans. Fujimoto and Granmamare watched the flagpole raising from Fujimoto’s submarine, concealed from view of everyone except their daughter. Ponyo waved at them when the ceremony completed and the crowd dispersed.

They spent the rest of Children’s Day playing in the sea with Ponyo’s sisters, which became as much part of the holiday as the raising of their koinobori.

The years passed, rolling like waves onto the shores of their lives. Fujimoto did his best to keep his promise, among all of his other duties as protector of the sea, to build and assemble all the necessary items to bring his ocean family safely onto land for Ponyo’s sake. Thankfully, Ponyo understood, and was happy to continue visiting her sisters several times a year.

In the meantime, Ponyo and Sōsuke grew up, finished school, attended university; at twenty they got married the month after Coming of Age Day. Two years later they started graduate school, both in marine biology; and Ponyo gave birth to their first child, a daughter, two years after that. To Fujimoto’s astonishment, Ponyo named her daughter her old magical name, Brunhilde.

Unfortunately, it had meant that Ponyo stopped visiting under the sea to focus on Brunhilde. After Brunhilde’s birth, Lisa – and Granmamare, who dearly missed her daughter’s visits and even more dearly wanted to meet her first grandchild – implored Fujimoto to finish his preparations. After much hemming and hawing, he finally decided they would visit during Golden Week, when Brunhilde would celebrate her first birthday on Children’s Day.

Chapter Text

Ponyo was standing at the kitchen window of the house on the cliff, when she saw Fujimoto’s submarine rise from the bay.

“Lisa, they’re coming!” she shouted. “They’re here!”

Ponyo rushed to the back door of the house and threw the door open, almost tearing it off its hinges in her excitement. “Mother! Father! You’re here, you’re finally here!”

Fujimoto, holding Granmamare’s hand, stepped off the seawater elevator he’d conjured to bring them up to the small backyard of the house on the cliff. He then turned and assisted his wife onto the well-soaked grass.

It had taken years of planning and months of testing by Fujimoto to be certain that his magic would deliver his wife and daughters safely onto land and sustain them for this momentous week of celebration. It was the human Golden Week celebrations; more importantly it was the first birthday of Ponyo’s own daughter, their first granddaughter Brunhilde, whom they would all meet for the first time. Fujimoto, Granmamare, and their daughters had not seen Ponyo in the ocean for months, since Ponyo’s child had been born; all of them were excited to see each other again.

Fujimoto’s attention was drawn upwards by a breeze, to a fluttering display of paper and cloth fish above him. The house on the cliff sported two flagpoles decorated for Children’s Day. One pole held four koinobori rippling gaily in the sea breeze, while the second hosted over two hundred.

He knew that the pole with four koinobori represented Ponyo’s human family: black, for Kōichi as the father, red for Lisa as the mother; the smaller blue and red koinobori symbolized Sōsuke and Ponyo.

The second pole with over two hundred koinobori represented Ponyo’s ocean family: Fujimoto, Granmamare, and all two hundred of Ponyo’s little sisters, each tiny red and white fish carefully labelled with their names, not one left out or forgotten, gently fluttering in the breeze.

This year on Children’s Day – Brunhilde’s first birthday – both families would erect a third pole to represent the newest family of Sōsuke, Ponyo, and Brunhilde.

Ponyo bounced on the balls of her feet, as if she were five years old again, as Fujimoto and Granmamare approached. Fujimoto stepped onto the grass of the backyard, and immediately his portable sprinkler system, that he wore like a backpack on his back and a sunhat on his head, began to spray a mist of seawater around him and Granmamare, and the small water bubble he carried within a transparent chest of sea glass. The bubble held all of Ponyo’s sisters, soundly asleep for the journey.

While Ponyo had grown and matured into human adulthood over the past twenty years, her sisters had remained almost the same size, and Fujimoto had yet to figure out why.

Fujimoto stopped and simply stared at his eldest daughter for a moment, then bowed to her deeply.

“You are the spitting image of your mother,” he whispered in awe.

Ponyo bowed as well. “Thank you, Father,”. She then grinned and giggled, took their hands and dragged them into the house. Fujimoto had to balance the chest on his hip. “Let me give you the tour and show you where you’ll stay,” she announced, bouncing again on her toes. “You’re going to love it!”

Fujimoto turned to Granmamare, who had to duck to enter the threshold, and who was smiling fondly at her husband and oldest daughter when she straightened. “I am sure it will be perfect,” she said serenely. Ponyo beamed at her.

Lisa and Kōichi stood back, away from the chaos, to watch the reunion. “Are you sure the upstairs can handle a sea wizard, the Goddess of Mercy, and two hundred goldfish all at once?” Kōichi whispered in Lisa’s ear.

“Fujimoto approved the accommodations himself,” Lisa said. She and Ponyo had worked with him over the years to design and renovate the entire upper floor. “I just hope the watertight drywall seams hold and the paint will stand up to the seawater.”

“Are the aquariums set up for the girls?” Fujimoto said, suddenly concerned about his sleeping charges.

“Yes, and the pipes between them are all hooked up so they can come visit downstairs too,” Lisa chirped.

“They’ll have full access to the house through the aquarium network,” Kōichi added. “Even outside.”

“Look, Father!” Ponyo said, pointing towards an elaborate lattice of clear pipes attached to the ceiling. The pipes crisscrossed each other, one set lower than the other. “Sōsuke and I designed it. They’ll swim down the upper set and back upstairs in the lower set. There’s a third aquarium tank in the kitchen and a fourth tank outside, so they can always be with us no matter where we are.”

Lisa exhaled in relief, remembering Ponyo’s reaction to the betta fish when she’d been a little girl. Ponyo especially had been adamant that her sisters not be stuck in one place.

Fujimoto looked up at the network, studying it with a critical eye, then nodded his approval. As if on cue, some of the small fish in the clear glass case began to stir. Ponyo bent over and waved at them. “Hi!” she said softly. They darted to the wall of the case and bumped their noses against the glass. Ponyo touched a finger to each of them and they wriggled happily.

“Why don’t we continue the reunion upstairs, my darling?” Granmamare urged.

“Okay. Can I take them up and show them their home away from home?”

“Of course, daughter,” Fujimoto said.

Fujimoto passed the case over to Ponyo, who held it with uncharacteristic care and tenderness. She had always been protective of her sisters since she was a small fry; she appeared even more protective now that she had a small fry of her own. They climbed the stairs to the guest quarters, a large room that took up the entire upstairs. A submarine door separated the room from the rest of the house. Inside, a giant seawater aquarium sat at one end of the room for her sisters. The pipes began there; the whole contraption allowed them full run of the house, inside and out.

“You did not have to go to all this trouble, Lisa,” Granmamare said.

“It was no problem at all! It’s the least we can do. We always wanted to return your kindness after you’ve hosted us all these years under the water.”

Fujimoto stalked over to the elaborate set of controls for the aquarium network and pushed a large, bright red button. The water began to bubble gently and course through the pipes until the pipes were fully flushed and filled.

Once the circulation system was fully functional, Ponyo held the glass case over the half-full aquarium and gently poured her sisters into the waiting seawater, letting the water top off the tank. Once inside, she tied her long hair back off her face, took a deep breath, and dunked her face in for her sisters to swim up and kiss her cheeks, chin, forehead and nose.

The rest of the room had a complex set of sprinklers and humidifiers set up to spray the same kind of mist that Fujimoto’s portable system did; a five metre tub for Granmamare to rest in outside of her water bubble; and a second smaller human-size tub for Fujimoto. The air was humid and salty and cool.

“When will we get to meet our granddaughter?” Fujimoto asked, with a mix of curiosity and apprehension.

“Patience, my husband,” Granmamare said, “they will be here when they arrive.”

Ponyo and Sōsuke had moved into a small apartment in town to be closer to the university, where both studied as graduate students in the department of marine biology. “Sōsuke will bring her over after her nap,” Lisa said, as Ponyo was still greeting her sisters under the water in the aquarium.

Ponyo pulled her head out of the aquarium and took a deep breath, water beading off her forehead and cheeks. She kept one hand inside the tank, wiggling her fingers to allow her sisters to continue to play with her; very much like how she played with her own daughter, Lisa observed. Ponyo trailed her fingers towards the mouth of the transport pipes.

Soon enough, a few of the boldest sisters followed, found the pipes, and swam into them, the flow sweeping them downstairs. Within minutes the network was alive with two hundred happy and curious little fish exploring the pipes, the nooks, and the crannies in the downstairs aquariums.

“It looks like they’re enjoying their home away from home,” Lisa said.

“Hey, we’re here!” Sōsuke called from downstairs a few minutes later.

“Up here, Sōsuke!” Lisa called back.

There were ten thumps of footsteps up the stairs, and then Sōsuke called, “Hey! My arms are full, can someone open the submarine door for me?”

Ponyo rushed to the door and wheeled it open to allow Sōsuke to step over the lip of the threshold with their baby daughter. Ponyo gestured Sōsuke to hand her over.

“Mother, Father, this is Brunhilde,” Ponyo said, “we call her Hilde for short. Would you like to hold her?”

The little girl, Hilde, was almost the spitting image of Ponyo as a young fry, with a shock of bright red hair and bright, laughing eyes; though her eyes were also Sōsuke’s eyes, deep and thoughtful. In all respects, she appeared to be an entirely, typical, human, year-old baby, still waking up from her nap.

But something about her – Fujimoto felt a shiver of recognition straight through his bones. No, he thought, she couldn’t be –

Magic was not supposed to pass to the next generation like that.

But he couldn’t recognize the kind of magic, either.

Ponyo thrust Hilde at a stunned Fujimoto, who automatically caught her by the shoulders, squishing her pudgy body upwards. He stared at her, and Hilde stared right back, surprisingly unafraid; she didn’t cry even once.

“No, Father, that’s not how you hold a baby!” Ponyo exclaimed. “Here, let me show you how it’s done.” She took her back, and arranged his arms until he had formed a proper cradle for the child. She then passed Hilde back to him. “Now try again,” she urged.

“Hello, Hilde,” Fujimoto said in a formal tone, “it is a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Hilde gazed up at him pensively, then reached out and grabbed a handful of his wild red hair.

“Ye-ow!” Fujimoto gasped. “Oh—oh!” His eyes watered and he winced as Hilde tugged gleefully before starting to chew on it.

Granmamare’s delighted chuckle resonated around the room. “It appears you may have forgotten how human babes react, my love,” she said.

“Oh no! I’m sorry, Father, I should have warned you about that,” Ponyo said, “she loves it so much I started pulling my hair back so she can’t grab anything.” She carefully disentangled Fujimoto’s hair from Hilde’s grasp. “I can get you a hair tie,” she offered, “let me get you a hair tie!”

Ponyo reached into her pocket and pulled out a blue, wide elastic. She pulled back Fujimoto’s hair at the nape of his neck, out of Hilde’s reach, and secured it with two twists.

“How’s that now?” Ponyo asked.

“I must look ridiculous,” he groused, but he did admit it was much nicer than enduring Hilde’s amazingly forceful hair pulls. The child was strong.

“You look as endearing as always,” Granmamare said, hiding a smile behind her hand. Hilde, now thwarted by her mother’s quick thinking, was content to pull and chew on Fujimoto’s scarf instead.

As Fujimoto continued to hold his granddaughter, he decided his first impression had been incorrect; he became certain that she was not a magical being after all. He could not sense any recognizable power emanating from her, feel any hum or warmth or light from within. She was a completely normal, human baby. He was immensely relieved, concerned that perhaps Ponyo had retained a smidgen of her prior magic.

They all startled at a clanging on the outer door to their guest room. “Oh yes, dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes!” Lisa said brightly, and then jumped when a loud beeping sounded. “Don’t worry, that’s just the smoke alarm saying that—oh no, the stewed seaweed!” And she flew downstairs.

The night was quiet throughout the darkened house on the cliff by the sea, the wind and water calm, save for the hum of the water bubblers of the aquariums upstairs and downstairs, and the soft rush of water through the transport pipes. Fujimoto gazed up at the moon through the window under the spray of mist from the in-wall humidifiers, savouring the calm.

Today was the longest time he had spent out of water since he had given himself to the sea and to Granmamare. All things considered, he felt their visit was going well. Lisa had graciously served foods that humans, sea wizards, ocean goddesses, and goldfish could all consume safely without worrying that the sisters might taste purely human food by accident and become tempted. (Although twenty years after Ponyo had become a human, none of the sisters had yet to show any inkling of the power Ponyo had wielded.)

Fujimoto was loathe to admit that neither he nor Granmamare knew anything about what Sōsuke and Ponyo discussed over the dinner table regarding their studies. He knew they were advanced students of biology; that they were studying subjects that Fujimoto himself once had learned, so many decades prior.

But words like “whole genome sequencing” and “frameshift mutations” and “CRISPR-Cas9” sounded like incantations for spells completely beyond his ken. Nor did he have Granmamare’s grace or ability to listen to them patiently and with complete interest; while he still tried to keep up, he struggled more often than not with some of their words.

To her enduring credit, Lisa had smiled sympathetically at Fujimoto across the table, her expression showing that she fully understood how he felt. On her way past to fetch after-dinner tea from the kitchen, she had leaned in to whisper to him, “Don’t worry, it’s all Greek to me too. I just smile and nod whenever they stop and take a breath.”

“Mom!” Sōsuke chided, while Ponyo had added, somewhat petulantly, “it’s very important work that will help us understand how best to treat fish diseases in the deep ocean.”

“Ponyo, stopping the dumping of oil and plastic and garbage into the ocean will do the same thing,” Fujimoto had reminded her, though perhaps more sharply than he’d intended.

“Well yes, it will, but fish will still get sick, and--” she trailed off, suddenly uncertain of what to say next.

Granmamare rebuked Fujimoto with a look. “I apologize, Ponyo,” he said, immediately contrite. “You are completely correct that we need to take care of our ocean and its citizens however we can, whether it be by my magic or by your science.”

“I would certainly like to hear more about your project, daughter,” Granmamare interjected mildly, clasping her hands on the table, and Ponyo had then embarked on another wildly incomprehensible dissertation.

Kōichi, however, Fujimoto could understand, as a seasoned fellow boat captain, and after they left the table and went outside to watch the sun set, they engaged in a thoughtful discussion about how the climate had appeared to be shifting ocean current patterns. Kōichi even had had one or two important observations that Fujimoto decided he should follow up.

Tonight, he was having trouble sleeping. He rarely slept anyway, far too busy to stop and rest when he needed to; this inactivity felt foreign to him. Plus, Granmamare had forbidden him from bringing even one logbook in his case, assuring him that the ocean could take care of itself for the few days they would be away with the humans.

He still eyed the moon, tracking its nightly progress through the sky, looking for subtle variations in its trajectory that might explain some of the shifting of the currents he and Kōichi had discussed earlier. Occasionally he glanced at Granmamare, lying peacefully in her tub with her eyes closed and hands folded over her stomach, but he took care with manipulating Kōichi’s telescope and sextant; she seemed not to be disturbed.

As the house slept, Fujimoto became aware of a faint, familiar snuffling noise coming from downstairs. He had not been aware that a human could make that sound; up until now he had heard it only from his sleeping daughters.

“Hilde,” he thought, and he crept to the submarine door. He carefully wheeled the handle to open the door and stepped through--

He immediately tripped over the threshold and sprawled on the hall carpet. He picked himself up and kept going. Though in his haste to get to Hilde, his portable sprinkler fell off his head and was left behind in the hallway.

He stumbled downstairs in the dark, past the master bedroom where Lisa and Kōichi lay in deep slumber, and into the living room, where Ponyo and Sōsuke slept soundly on a pullout couch. A netted enclosure sat on the floor a few feet away—this was where Hilde was, he thought. He crept over and looked down into the play yard, where the little girl was sitting up, wide awake and placidly gazing at the aquarium by the wall, chewing on her fist.

“Good evening, Hilde,” he greeted her quietly, so as not to disturb Ponyo’s and Sōsuke’s rest.

She stared up at him and began to chew her fingers, appearing – serene, he thought, in a way Ponyo never had been. As if she were patiently waiting for something to happen. It was quite unusual; “patience” and Ponyo had never belonged in the same sentence. Perhaps she had inherited this innate stillness from her father. Or perhaps she had acquired it from her grandmother, his beloved, skipping a generation.

“Would you like to visit your aunts, Hilde?” he offered; he bent over and held out his arms. She bounced on her seat and cooed and reached out to him; he scooped her up, remembering this time not to squish her.

He carefully picked his way across the floor over to the aquarium, where a number of his daughters swam around and through the miniature caverns. It had pained him that since Ponyo became human twenty years ago, they had not seemed to grow beyond their fry stage, but instead had seemed content to remain small and immature, as if frozen in time. He had expected, had hoped, that with Ponyo no longer there, one or more of them would take up her mantle and gain her magical abilities, but it seemed that all had been lost with her transformation. Such a shame; he had never witnessed any witch or wizard as powerful as his eldest daughter, as raw and unschooled as she was. All that power, seemingly lost forever.

He opened the top of the aquarium to trail his fingers along the top of the tank, in the warm, comforting salt water, reminding him that he no longer had his misters and that he was starting to dry out. He sprinkled water from the aquarium over his hands and face, careful not to soak the rug they stood on.

He held her tiny hand and inspected it, all soft and smooth and whole. “Would you like to dip your hand in, Hilde?” he asked her. He decided there would be no harm in doing so.

Hilde babbled something that he decided meant “yes,” so he stooped low enough for her to touch the surface, where Hilde plunged her hand in and withdrew it. She frowned at her hand, then plunged it in again, and laughed as one of the fish swam up to her and nudged her thumb.

Hilde’s giggles woke up Sōsuke first, who wondered why she wasn’t asleep; until he saw a vaguely familiar shadow in front of the aquarium.

“Who’s there?” he whispered—then the shadow moved, he saw the aquarium, and he dove over to shake Ponyo awake.

“Ponyo. Ponyo. Wake up, something’s happening with Hilde!”

At the aquarium, Fujimoto gaped at the scene growing and expanding in front of him. One of his boldest daughters, Diana, had swum up to Hilde’s fingers. Hilde, delighted, opened and closed her hand, attempting to catch her in her chubby fist. Diana darted away, then returned. Then Hilde managed to touch her, her thumb brushing across Diana’s head--

Diana began to glow a golden hue.

Sōsuke approached the aquarium to stand beside Fujimoto, not believing what was happening. “Is Hilde magic?” Sōsuke breathed.

“No, she is not, I’m absolutely certain of it,” Fujimoto murmured in the same awed, hushed tone.

“But that is magic. So how’s she doing this?” Ponyo said, wide-eyed, standing on the other side of Fujimoto.

The other sisters in the tank had noticed the change in their glowing sibling, and soon they too swam up to the surface, where Hilde gurgled and chortled and clumsily tried to catch them. Whenever one of them ran into her hand or fingers, she too began to glow, her magic returned to her.

Fujimoto swallowed hard. He had spent years trying to unlock this very power in his daughters after Ponyo had left to live as a human. How could a non-magical child impart this magic to them where he had failed? He wished Granmamare were here to witness and explain it to him.

Shortly, enough of the sisters had been transformed by Hilde’s touch that the pinpoints of golden light began to coalesce in the water. More and more of them came up, drawn by the warmth and the glow.

Fujimoto then sensed another presence in the tank—it was Granmamare herself, who’d arrived through the pipe network, and brought with her all the rest of Ponyo’s sisters who’d been resting and exploring in the other aquariums in the kitchen, upstairs, and outside. Granmamare rose gracefully from the tank, abstracting the humidity from the air to form a bubble around her.

As she ascended from the tank, a low hum rose from the water; the light in the tank began to sing. Ponyo’s eyes lit up as she recognized the melody almost immediately.

“Hilde’s returning their magic to them,” she said in awe. “That’s what it is, isn’t it, Mother?”

Granmamare nodded. “The soul of a child borne in love,” she said, “wields a powerful magic of its own. That magic of love locked in Hilde, she’s unlocked to return in kind to your sisters, and restore them to where they were before.”

Fujimoto looked stricken by the news. “But isn’t it good that she’s returning their magic to them, Father, making them magical again?” Ponyo asked, puzzled.

“It means that soon we will have two hundred Ponyos,” he said, in a voice so deeply filled with wonder and melancholy that Ponyo’s eyes filled with tears.

“Not all of them will make the same choices, my love,” Granmamare reminded him, brushing a consoling hand across the top of his head.

Fujimoto sighed heavily. “Of course not. What’s important is that I allow them to make their choices freely,” Fujimoto agreed. “And accept them no matter what they are.”

At that he turned his head to Ponyo, with a soft look on his face. “Thank you, daughter, for showing me the way so long ago,” he said gravely.

Ponyo could only nod her acknowledgement, and she sniffed.

Once the last tiny sister had transformed, Hilde began to nod in Fujimoto’s arms, her eyelids drooping. “Let me hold my granddaughter,” Granmamare said.

Fujimoto forged an air bubble around Hilde and handed the sleepy child to his wife, who touched her forehead to their granddaughter’s, and murmured something low and soothing to her. Hilde fell fast asleep, and Granmamare gently placed the sleeping girl in Sōsuke’s arms to put to bed.

She then turned to Ponyo. “Come here, my dearest Ponyo,” Granmamare entreatied, holding her arms out.

Ponyo did so, and Granmamare enveloped her in a warm embrace. She touched her forehead to Ponyo’s, not saying anything this time, communicating only by touch and thought; but Ponyo smiled and nodded, and whispered, “Thank you, Mother.” Granmamare released her daughter, then held her hand out to Fujimoto.

“Come walk with me, my darling,” she said.

They headed outside into the tiny backyard, where the full moon shone over them. The sea breeze rose from the ocean, adding carrying its welcome water droplets up the cliff to the grass.

“Ponyo’s sisters are all transformed,” Fujimoto said, “all restored and back on their original path. I tried so long with them--”

“Perhaps you simply tried too hard. Love is capable of the most wonderful miracles,” Granmamare said.

“What does a baby know of love that we do not?” Fujimoto asked.

“Trust and security.”

Fujimoto fell silent. His beautiful, beloved wife was astute as always, while he felt like he trailed several steps behind.

“Always remember that you held Hilde while it happened,” she murmured, “that you gave her the trust and security she needed to impart her gift to her aunties. She could not have done it without you.”

Fujimoto exhaled, unable to refute her statement. “It has been an eventful holiday,” Fujimoto commented after a moment, “and it is only just beginning.”

“Let us enjoy what we have now, my love,” Granmamare said. “And we will manage what will come with our daughters after we return to the sea.”

“I would like that,” Fujimoto said.

“And may I say, you continue to look quite dashing with your hair like that,” she added with a giggle.

“I think I like it too,” Fujimoto said, reaching up to touch Ponyo’s hair tie that still held his hair back. “I think I shall keep it and wear it tomorrow when we raise our daughter's koinobori.”

“I cannot wait.”

Fujimoto regarded her with a curious look. “What did you tell Ponyo?”

“That everything is back on track as it should be. And that she should give you more of those wonderful ties.”

“Indeed it is.” Their combined laughter chimed through the night air across the sea.